Some sunshine at last.

At long last the sari has had a little sniff of limp winter sunshine. Not a lot you understand but at the moment a single sunbeam is extremely welcome. How long will it last? Wind is still blowing up but nothing like the 60mph gusts we had last night.
No visit to patch 1 this morning as poor Frank was of to the vets first thing for his op – got himself a six inch long scar on his belly to show off to his mates now.
Patch 2 at lunchtime was almost pleasant for the ten minutes or so we managed to get out for. The usual Common Scoters were there, bouncing on the waves as they do – tough little cookies these ducks. Really difficult to count in the conditions but I’d guestimate at between 100 and 150 altogether. Two adult Kittiwakes scythed their way south through the waves followed by a nicely marked 1st winter bird a bit closer in a few minutes later. A Great Blacked Backed Gull had a look of a giant Manx Shearwater as it careened through the troughs. Best sighting was saved ‘til last – what looked suspiciously like two light phase Arctic Skuas travelled south together in the middle to far distance. Some thing on, or in, the water caught the eye of one of them and it wheeled round and dropped to the surface, the other kept on going until it was right in the sun and we could watch it no more. A third adult Kittiwake was seen just before the calling of the desk got too strong and we had to return back indoors.
Great to be out and not get wet!
Couple of pics for you from yesterday – the Magpie appeared as if out of nowhere hopping down the ridge on the roof then hovered for a milli-second before clinging on to the wall to investigate whatever it was it thought it might have seen.

Don’t know where it came from as I had been watching out of the kitchen window for a digi-scoping opportunity…which in the end we got...our first attempt. Bear in mind this is taken through dirty double glazed window on the dullest of afternoons through 15m (50’) of intervening garden with a very basic cheapo camera, but Goldfinches are always nice! There’s definitely room for improvement but we’ll get there – eventually.

Where to next – Patch 1 trips are curtained until Frank recovers from his op but there really ain’t no point being there over an hour before first light anyway. If the Peregrine is on the water tower we could probably see it from his reduced ‘dry’ walk depending on the wind direction. So it’ll probably be Patch 2 news only for the time being unless we can get out at the weekend but with the large number of invalids to be attended to that is looking unlikely.
In the meantime let us know what operations are being performed in your outback.

Flowers in November

The safari has just been out to Patch 1 between showers. I say between but actually we got aught in a downpour. We noticed a remarkable range of flowers still flowering:-

False (= Tall) Oat Grass

Yorkshire Fog

Wall Barley

Prickly Sow Thistle

Smooth Sow Thistle

Dandelion

Common Catsear

Bramble - buds about to burst.

In the garden at Base Camp I can see:-

Evening Primrose - buds just bursting

Fuchsia

Clematis - The President I think

Pansies (supposed to be spring flowering but have been going nonstop for about 18 months)

Lobelia

Aubretia

Ladies Mantle

Nasturtium

Thrift

Rosemary - buds about to break

A pink thing in the pond that is normally a late flowerer anyway

Herb Robert

and a low growing Sedum thing that normally flowers around June/July

At Parch 1 we saw exotica like Collared Doves, a very nicely marked 1st winter Blackbird - very scaly on the breast - confiding too - wish I'd taken the camera! (hmm electronics - torrential rain), a Mistle Thrush, proving me a liar on the AutumnWatch thread when I replied to another correspondent and told them all ours from Patch 1 had long gone and not reappeared - this one must have been a long distant migrant - honest!?! Frank saw a Grey Squirrel on the ground but it beat him up the nearest tree by about half an hour.

Talking of Autumnwatch they showed the spectacular Buckenham Rook & Jackdaw roost. Now many years ag I used to live less than 5 miles from there and never knew about it. The presenter was shown the spectacle by Mark Cocker, a well known wildlife writer. He and I were contemporaries at uni but I can't remember anything about him despite surely us both being in the extremely active Bird Club. Maybe I have beer induced amnesia from that time. He sudied English literature I only studued Biological Sciences so he has written lots of books and got them published - even got a couple myself - whereas I have written one book that'll never get published it would seem - not unless I pay £600 for the priveledge. Good luck to him but i still can't see his face on any of those maniacal minibus tours we used to go on - he probably has no clue as to who I am either. My only regret in life is I didn't take the opportunity to learning ringing when it was handed to me on a plate - now I couldn't get up early enough and haven't got enough fingers left!

Above is our student house at Plumstead Green, Norfolk

Still very grey...and guess what - it's raining again now!

Here's a quiz for you mathematicians/statisticians - If 12.4 inches of rain fell at Seathwaite the other day and that is the new record and being hailed as a 1 in 1000 years event how come it only beat the previous record by 1.4 inches which occurred in 1955. Was that day only a 1 in 500 years event? Or will it not happen again until (approx) the year 2982? 2982 = (2009 - 1955) / 2 + 1955 + 1000. That sort of statistic should be some sort of consolation to those flooded out - somehow I don't think they'll have to wait the best part of 1000 years before it happens again.

Where to next? Out in the wet somewhere tomorrow hopefully.

In the meantime let us know what's trying to avoid drowning in your outback.

PS we have discovered that of our three digicams the crappy 20 quid little one will take photos through the scope...you have been warned.

New and old

New - Just put on a link to the SW Lancs Ringing Group - the places where they ring was where I grew up and learnt my birding. CHET is Crosby Hall (Environmental Trust) where I used to help out with the Riding for the Disabled group, pick sprouts, dig potatoes, cut cabbages etc; and IB is Ince Blundell where we used to bunk over the wall to see real rarities like Nuthatches and Great Spotted Woodpeckers.

Old - proper version of the chart from a couple of days ago for you to peruse.

Later dudes...

Waiting…

The safari is sitting waiting for something to happen. Like the calm before the storm.
Ehh-upp muther is in hospital today undergoing heart surgery, the weather outside is wild, it’s barely daylight even mid-afternoon. Can’t concentrate at work. It’s like waiting for a dose of swine fever. It’s all soooo depressing.
Could do with something rather special wildlifey turning up unexpectedly and lifting this miasma of gloom. Can’t see it happening in these raging, but freakily mild, southerlies though.
The south side has a Shore Lark, why couldn’t it be flitting around on the beach by the dunes just down the road, and they still have a Great White Egret, but not a chance of getting over there to see them in the foreseeable future. Oh woe is me with a wailing and gnashing of teeth. Think I’m coming down with SAD. Will have to go and stick my head in under a UV lamp.
After yesterday’s disappointing and humongously embarrassing mammalian mix up i.e. lump of dross posing as a rare, on our coast, Harbour Seal (almost as bad as the Cley Mud Owl of many years ago) here’s a mammalian holiday snap from a few years ago to brighten our day. No; its not in the local zoo.

No news from Patch 1 again today, too dark, and no chance to get anywhere near Patch 2.

What an old picture of a Cormorant has got to do with the price of fish is anyone's guess but there it is anyway.

Where to next? Hmm wind and rain allowing...

In the meantime let us know how much rain has fallen in your outback this week.

Surely not more grey and wet weather!

The safari is wet through!

Carrying on the theme of recent days/weeks/months it’s raining again. Yesterday there was an Environment Agency Tidal Breach alert due to the high(ish) tide and strong winds but it didn’t happen. Not that the tide was that high – only 9.3m it can go nearly another metre on top of that. That’s got absolutely nothing to do with all this rainfall what-so-ever just thought I’d tell you about it cos it was almost exciting and news only filtered down to staff here this morning so the alert was late getting through to people, they’d have needed their flippers yesterday not this lunchtime!
But today is a grey, grey day it really doesn’t look like it’s gonna get properly light out there.
Oh PS…I’ve put the spreadsheet into yesterday’s post – had to take a photo of the offending article and add it as a jpeg – is there another way?
Patch 1 was visited in total darkness early doors so nothing at all to report from there, no Peregrine on the water tower, it can be seen in the glow of the street lights if it’s present, and Patch 2 was avoided before work due to lashing rain and total greyness, impossible to tell where the sea finished and the sky started on my drive in to work …no better, perhaps even worse at lunchtime… Did think I saw a Harbour Seal, which would have been an excellent spot, but once the zoom on the scope was turned up a bit it turned in to a lump of floating marine litter unfortunately…doh
So maybe today will be a day for grey birds like the Grey Wagtail; which seems to confuse many an Autumnwatch viewer…lots of comments on their messageboard (OK I admit I read it AND contribute sometimes) about ‘Yellow Wagtails’ keep appearing so much so that it appears the wintering population of these scarcities must be higher than the summer breeding population!
Grey Herons rarely visit our stretch of beach favouring the more estuarine and salt marshy bits round the corner but they are a nightmare in the spring when they try to catch wifey’s fish back at Base Camp’s pond. Grey Plover is a rare and very welcome find on Patch 2. For one day only a Grey Phalarope was across the bay at Walney Island recently. On the safari’s recent visit to the nature reserve we didn’t see any Grey Lag Geese and we have just about forgotten what Grey Partridge look like. Talking of a safari we might twitch out up north to see if we can find the Great Grey Shrike that has taken up residence in the hills again. Can’t believe they bred in Cumbria this year…strange goings-on indeed.
Finding a Grey Tailed Tattler in amongst the Redshanks on Patch 2 would have us cock-a-hoop. As would finding a Grey Catbird at the nature reserve…now that WOULD cause a major stir! A trip to the arid interior of Australia to find Grey Falcons, and other good stuff, would go down a storm, as would a trip to the jungles of West Africa to look for African Grey Parrots, or even a trip up to the frozen north for Great Grey Owls… All of these would be nice but no where near as nice as a Grey Headed Gull…now we ARE talking quality birds. Monika, have you got Gra(e)y Foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) up your way? I have a Grey Wolf in my sitting room; well a slightly modified one but still genetically 98+% Wolf – Big Frank. OK, OK its wearing a bit thin now!
We can all dream our lives away on rainy days like today….

Back to reality with a big bump – remember yesterday’s essay/statistical analysis/lies... well we saw on the news today that a global temperature increase of an almighty 6°C is on the cards within a hundred or so years if we don’t buck our ideas up! That could have the Sahara reaching as far north as Paris! So what has brought about this over exaggerated, alarmist hike in estimated temperature rise? A 30% increase in global emissions since 2000 that’s what. “Nothing to do with us” you shout…”we’re cutting our carbon footprint like crazy”. Well OK you’ve stabilised it sort of so that it’s not climbing anything like as fast as it was a couple of decades ago so you can blame it all on the developing nations. Almost all the rise is due to places like China, India, Brazil, Indonesia etc all those places that are trying like crazy to catch us westerners up in the Destruction of the Planet stakes. But at least 30% of their rise in emissions is because they make stuff and provide services for us – in effect we’ve ‘exported’ our carbon footprint…nice try but it won’t wash…nothing will get washed if we turn the planet into a desert in the next 100 – 150 years! Remember yesterday I told you the planet was only 5°C cooler during the last glacial maximum, now were looking at a 6°C rise…making London the equivalent of Tripoli or Algiers and Paris more like Timbuktoo, hahaha. Scary stuff for our wildlife to have to contend with or adapt to.
Where to next? Amazon.com to look for field guides to desert animals…Oh look at that! A Fennec Fox in the garden at Base Camp…or is it just a drowned rat?
In the meantime let us know what the predictions are for the future of your outback and don’t forget the wise words of wisdom of our favourite non-Native American from Brighton, Chief Grey Owl – We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors – we borrow it from our children…he seems to have a point.
It’s all still a very ‘grey’ area. I bet you’re really ‘greytful’ for all that woffle
Sorry – no wildlife pictures again today.

10°C at 6.00am in mid November!

Oh no the safari has been messing with figures and statistics...

That is a very balmy (or should that be barmy) temperature for the time of year.
Is this ‘normal’ or is it a sign of climate change? A ‘normal’ expected ‘average’ temperature for that time of day at this time of year would be 4°C – so certainly some difference there!
We have been keeping a beady eye on the daily temperatures here in Blackpool since the turn of the Millennium and have started to notice some trends. The weather station we use is at the airport and has been operational for many years with Met Office records dating back to before 1961. Although it has been operational for all that time it is not an ‘official’ National Weather Station and does not contribute to the Central England Temperature (CET) records. This is a triangular area through the, obviously, centre of the country with its apices at Preston, Bristol and London.
The airport weather station is far enough out of town to be unaffected by the residual heat from the built up area but is near enough to accurately reflect the conditions experienced locally.
The graph below has two components; the upper three lines represent the daily maximum temperatures and the bottom three lines the daily minimum temperatures, usually but not exclusively night time temperatures.
The two ‘paired’ lines give the values for the two thirty year periods, 1961 – 1990 and 1971 – 2000 and show that there was little difference in either the maximum or minimum daily temperatures between.
We are now getting towards the end of the current thirty year period 1981 – 2010. How will it compare with the previous two?
So what do our records show?
Instantly noticeable is the brown line that is clearly above the lowest pair of lines. This tells us that the average daily minimum temperature is now significantly warmer than in previous years.
The yellow line shows a slight increase in maximum daily temperatures during the spring and early part of the summer, the rest of the year being pretty much as expected.
Strange goings on then…and not particularly easy to understand. If the current increase in the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are causing climate change you would be excused for thinking that they would work during the day as well as at night. I have no rational explanation for the observed difference…can any wise and knowledgeable person shed some light on our mis-matched phenomenon? It’s not only us there has been an observed shrinking of the max-min temperature differential from many places around the world.
Now it is important to understand that you shouldn’t really make direct comparisons of only nearly ten years of data with a thirty year sequence. Unfortunately I don’t have access to the information to be able to go back to 1981. When the official figures are released in early 2011 we’ll be able to see how much change there has been between the three thirty year periods. The next set of data, 1991 – 2020 will be even more interesting as it takes us beyond the 1961 – 1990 data. I wonder what it will show…can’t wait! But if it warms up enough to secure Cetti’s Warblers as a breeding species I’ll be a happy bunny. What if we get temperatures more akin to Benidorm than Blackpool? What might we expect to colonise then? Over the last 10 -15 years we’ve already seen the northward march of Migrant Hawker and Ruddy Darter dragonflies, Large and Small Skipper butterflies – it’ll take a very observant and/or lucky person to pull out our first Essex Skipper when they get this far north. I say ‘when’ because I think it’s much more likely than if. I’m looking out for our first Marbled White – a really bonny looking butterfly. If these are all winners, which species will the losers? It’s really hard to be able to make a prediction. Some of those currently declining ‘seem’ to be doing so for reasons more akin to negative habitat changes, such as the oft cited farmland birds. So who knows? All we can say with any certainty is that there is change afoot, probably quite a lot of change in the coming decade or two, and we need to monitor our wildlife carefully so that climate change, which in the short term at least we are probably not going to be able to control, is not used as an excuse for a particular species, or suite of species, not doing so well when poor habitat ‘management’, which we do have some control over, is actually the cause.
As for sea-level rise – 170mm (7”) in the last 100 years preceded by about the same in the previous 2000 years - how much will we get and when is very much open to debate and possibly more closely linked to post-glacial isostatic adjustment (rebound) than increasing temperatures. It’s still gonna go up though whichever mechanism is in control. A metre by 2100 – I like to live long enough to see that! It’ll make quite a mess. Where’s me boat?
For all you climate sceptics out there surely it’s best not to add to the GG load in the atmosphere just in case…or you can go on polluting and hope the IPCC etc have got it wrong as you suggest. One thing I think will happen is that humans will use every last drop of oil, wisp of natural gas and lump of coal…how fast we do that will have a bearing on our future, do it quick without a care in the world and we’ll make a rod for our own back, but slow down and let the technologists find solutions and we’ll do OK. With big bucks and big greed in charge the former is more likely than the latter.
Essay over- - where on earth did that little lot come from?
Where to next? I’ll bet you’re hoping we get out on safari and see some wildlife SOON…some mammals would be nice.
In the meantime let us know how far up the pier legs the sea is rising in your outback.

A better afternoon

The safari was stuck indoors this morning during bouts of torrential downpours but the weather perked up after lunch so we dashed out to our local nature reserve. As soon as we arrived we met up with a few birders looking, or more accurately listening, for the Cetti's Warblers. They had only had brief calls from one individual so we decided to have a listen at a few other points around the site. Nothing doing. It would be wrong to say there wasn't a great lot about but there was nothing out of the ordinary. If we had braved the weather earlier in the day we would have bagged a Goosander. But it had gone by the time we got there.

Pick of the bunch were probably 4 female, 1 1st winter male and an adult male Goldeneye. As the afternoon started to turn to dusk small flocks of Starlings came in from the fields but not in the tens of thousands as there has been recently. At least two and probably three Sparrowhawks manoevered themselves in to the best positions for a lightning strike. A Peregrine was seen carrying a small victim, probably a Starling, to its regular perch on the nearby pylon. A Kestrel hovered oblivious to all the flying meat, its attention focused on the ground below for Voles, beetles or worms.

A lucky bonus was a flight of twenty two Pintails going over, not a regular species at this site. Nicking in to the hide we sat watched, listened and waited. Nothing much doing, very few gulls to get the juices flowing. But when things were not looking promising suddenly from the reeds to the right a quiet, or distant, Cetti's Warbler shouted out a short blast of song. Listening intently, nothing further. Settling down to scan the reeds opposite for Bitterns became our focus but just as we were getting in to it the Cetti's fired up again, closer and/or louder this time. There was too much vegetation between us and it to really stand much of a chance of getting a glimpse of it.

Still no sign of the Bittern. There was another birder away up the reserve so we walked over to him to see if he'd had any joy. Joy of joys he had. Two Cetti's, making at least three and probably four for the day.

We hung around to the last of the light but still the Bittern didn't show.

Hope the Long Eared and Barn Owls get a chance to hunt tonight, it looks like its going to be reasonably rain free for them - they must be getting pretty hungry by now. The warden told us there were two Long Eareds on site but they were very tricky so we'll wait a little while longer until after the frosts have dropped the last of the leaves and thery are a bit easier to spot.

Where to next? Still need that third tick on Patch 1 - d'yer think we'll get it?

In the meantime let us know what's invaded your outback in huge numbers.